


Stripped

by Gemmiel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: DeanCas - Freeform, Destiel - Freeform, M/M, Wing Kink, wingkink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-02-04 03:32:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1764205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gemmiel/pseuds/Gemmiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester is fond of relaxing in "strip joints." Castiel can't quite understand the appeal of watching women remove small scraps of fabric, but on those occasions when he accompanies Dean, he notices that the hunter is most interested in the strippers wearing angel costumes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I found this sitting on my hard drive. Apparently I started it and then forgot about it. It seemed like a promising beginning, so I decided to polish it up and post it.

“Jesus. That angel has an amazing pair of… wings.”

At Dean Winchester’s appreciative comment, Castiel frowned in puzzlement. He had only been “hanging out” with the Winchester brothers for a short time, but he had already come to realize that if he spent any amount of time with them, then visiting places of iniquity was inevitable. Tonight Sam was elsewhere, interviewing one victim of what appeared to be an angry but incompetent spirit, while Dean and Castiel waited to speak to another victim. And to Dean’s ill-concealed delight, the victim worked in what Dean had termed a “strip joint.”

Evidently the purpose of a “strip joint” was to display as much human flesh as possible. The “angel” Dean had referred to—who was also the victim they were here to interview—wore two tiny bits of sequined fabric, along with a pair of fluffily feathered white wings. 

“Those wings are not real,” Castiel said, frowning more deeply. “And even if they were, they would not strike me as particularly impressive.”

Dean snorted, and slapped him on the shoulder. Castiel froze for a moment, wondering if he had angered the other man, then realized that the slap was intended as an expression of human male camaraderie. Since he was neither human nor male, the gesture was misguided, but a small part of him appreciated the sentiment. He was beginning to enjoy “fitting in” with these particular humans.

“When I said her wings,” Dean explained, taking a long swig of beer, “I didn’t really mean her _wings._ ”

Castiel studied the angel, who was hanging off a pole in such a way that her rather large breasts all but escaped the fabric concealing them. “Ah,” he said, nodding. “You were actually referring to her bosom.”

“Her boobs. Jesus Christ, Cas, don’t say _bosom._ No one’s said _bosom_ in a freakin’ century.”

“Her… boobs, then. You find her ‘boobs’ attractive?”

“Hell, yeah. I mean, _look_ at ‘em.”

Castiel looked. Despite his best efforts, he had thus far utterly failed to make sense of human emotions like lust. He couldn’t seem to grasp why humans enjoyed looking at other humans, let alone made up these elaborate rituals in men watched while a woman slowly and dramatically removed her clothing. If humans wanted to see other humans naked, why didn’t they just ask them? And why did they want to see each other naked in the first place? After all, “boobs” were simply mammary glands, evolved for feeding the young of the species, and every adult female human had them. They were far from rare or unusual items. Even the type that Dean preferred—large ones belonging to young women—seemed to be more or less ubiquitous.

Castiel observed the woman on the stage carefully, but even when the “angel” removed the little scrap of fabric over her breasts and threw it aside, he couldn’t see any significant difference between her anatomy and any other female’s. It was most puzzling. But Dean was apparently pleased by his intent stare, because he smacked Castiel's shoulder again.

“That’s my boy,” he said.

Castiel ignored the small glow of warmth inside his chest. Dean’s approval already meant far more to him than it should. He did not wish to care about human approval. “What about her wings?” he asked. “Do you find them attractive?”

“Her wings? Dude, they’re just part of her costume. They’re not real. No one actually has wings.”

Castiel studied the fluffy white wings for a long moment, and sighed. _He_ had wings, of course. Wings that were far larger and more impressive than these puny artificial ones. But apparently humans were only interested in human anatomy, and felt no desire when looking at wings.

Which was just as well, as he couldn’t possibly expose something so personal to a human anyway. Not even to Dean Winchester.

Even so, a little part of him wished that he could spread out his own enormous wings, and that Dean might then stare at him with the same awestruck, hungry expression he usually reserved for strippers and pornography. He imagined Dean looking at him that way, the green eyes intent, _avid,_ and the little glow inside his chest burned hotter.

He suppressed the little glow until it died to embers, and sat quietly, watching the woman gyrating on stage without interest.

*****

“Dean, why are we here?”

Dean and Castiel were seated at a round table, while barely-clad women danced on stage a mere ten feet away. Sam had declined to come along when Dean had suggested going to a strip joint, claiming a need to do research on his laptop, but Cas hadn't missed the little eye roll he'd given his brother. Apparently Sam did not share his brother's enthusiasm for scantily clad strange women—or perhaps he simply preferred observing them in a more private environment.

Dean grinned across the table at Cas. “I just needed to relax a little, buddy. I figured it wouldn’t hurt you, either. You’ve had a stick up your ass for weeks now.”

Cas considered retorting that he had nothing at all up his ass—in his angel form he had no ass which might conceal such an item, and in his human vessel he suspected having a stick inserted in that region would be decidedly uncomfortable—but by now he had spent enough time with the Winchesters that he understood the expression to be figurative rather than literal. “There is a war going on in Heaven, Dean. It is hardly surprising that I would be… less than relaxed.”

“Gotta chill sometime, dude. Drink your beer and enjoy the show.”

Cas took a sip of the amber liquid, and licked the foam off his upper lip. Dean gave him an odd look, then looked back at the woman gyrating on stage, her ample breasts bouncing in time to the music. Like the stripper they had watched previously, this one wore feathery white wings. 

“That angel is something else,” he said.

Cas tilted his head. Several other young, large-breasted women had danced across the stage in various costumes (if _costume_ was a word that could really be applied to such tiny scraps of fabric), but whereas Dean's attention had wandered somewhat when the other women paraded in front of them, he seemed totally focused on this one. There was a certain intensity in his gaze that had been lacking until now.

“You seem to enjoy watching angels take their clothes off,” Cas observed.

Dean had been sipping his own beer, but at his friend's words, he suddenly choked on it, and began coughing. Cas observed him with concern.

“Are you all right, Dean?”

“Fine.” Dean spluttered and coughed. “Fine.” 

When he got himself under control, he shot a fleeting glance at Cas, then looked back at the stage. His shoulders were rigid, and his chin tilted up slightly. “If I’ve got a thing about angels,” he said, sounding defensive, almost defiant, “it’s probably because me and Anna, you know…”

Cas nodded. He did know. He wasn’t sure, however, why the thought of Anna in Dean’s arms made his gut tighten. It was most likely, he thought, simply the fact that sex between angels and humans was frowned on in Heaven. It was only right that he should find the mere thought of such a thing revolting.

The problem was that he wasn't certain that revulsion was precisely what he felt. His emotions on the subject were, he reflected, oddly complex. But he shrugged his doubt and confusion aside, and did his best to suppress the tension coiling inside him. "Anna’s wings were not white,” he pointed out.

Dean frowned, and turned toward him. “Dude, she didn’t have wings. Neither do you.”

“Of course she did, and so do I. You have seen the shadows, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, but I thought that was kind of, I don’t know, an illusion. Just a way of intimidating people who piss you off. Are you telling me you have actual feathery wings, just like Miss Centerfold up there?”

Cas eyed “Miss Centerfold” with scorn. “Her wings are tiny.”

Dean stared at him, wide-eyed. He seemed to have totally forgotten the stripper's existence, which Cas found puzzling, considering how avidly he'd been watching her a moment ago. “Yours are a lot bigger than that?”

“Of course.”

“What color are they?”

“White.” The pristine hue of his feathers was a source of great pride to Cas. In fact, his wings were spectacular, and had been widely regarded as among the most beautiful in Heaven. One of the most annoying things about residing in this human vessel was the fact that he never unsheathed his wings. He had few vanities, but he was decidedly possessed of the vice of vanity where his wings were concerned.

Dean blinked at him a few minutes longer, then turned away abruptly and stared at the stripper. “Just like hers, huh?”

Cas snorted, a dismissive, contemptuous sound. “There is absolutely no comparison.”

“Really.” Dean watched the stripper, but there was a certain blankness in his eyes that made Cas suspect he really wasn’t seeing her at all. “Wow. You think you know a guy…”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been a while since I wrote anything. I'm working at getting back into it. Thanks for your patience!

Dean was in trouble.

Cas heard his fast-muttered, desperate prayer, and popped into existence to find Dean in a dim, dusty warehouse, surrounded by demons. Cas looked around, observing with faint surprise that Sam wasn’t here. But he didn’t have time to worry about the younger Winchester right now. Dean was already bleeding from several bad gashes, and five demons were closing in on him.

Cas stood in front of Dean, protecting him, sheltering him from the swarm, and let his angelic wrath rise. Grace pressed at his skin, making him glow, and he felt his wings unfurl in all their grandeur, the vast breadth of them shining silver-white, as if each and every feather reflected God's glory. In this moment he was a weapon of Heaven, pure and sharp-honed and deadly, and the demons shied back in instinctive terror.

He reached toward them to smite them, and they all scurried away.

Cas let them go. He spun around to find Dean kneeling on the filthy floor, holding his gut in a way that suggested severe damage. Blood spilled out between his fingers, and his face was pale and taut with pain. His teeth were clenched, and yet small sounds emerged from his throat, sounds that Cas could only describe as whimpers. 

Racked with concern and sympathy for his friend, the angel fell to his knees, not taking the time to sheathe his wings, and reached out, cupping Dean’s face in his hand. Dean’s skin glowed briefly, and all his injuries faded. He let out a long sigh of relief as his slashed skin knitted itself back together.

“Thanks,” he said shakily, reaching up and putting his fingers over Cas’ hand. “They got the drop on me… if you hadn’t shown up…”

Cas frowned at him. “You should not be hunting without backup. Where is Sam?”

“While we were gone…” Dean shifted, moving more upright. Now that he was healed, there was no reason for Cas to maintain the physical connection with Dean, and yet he was loath to move his hand away from the human's face, especially with Dean's fingers curled over his. “While we were in Purgatory, he met this woman. Amelia. The two of them had this… I don’t know, sort of a domestic thing going. Like me and Lisa, I guess. Anyway, it took him a while to decide, but he’s gone back to her.”

“Sam… has left you?” Cas frowned, unable to wrap his mind around the concept. Sam and Dean's lives had been entwined since Cas had met them. Except for the year Dean had spent in Purgatory, they were rarely apart for more than a few hours. He pressed for an explanation. "Did you make him angry?"

“Nah. Not this time. I just... well, he’s a big boy, Cas. And he’s always wanted that kind of life, you know? I mean, I dragged him into hunting in the first place. If he can find happiness with Amelia... well, I get it. I do.”

There were shadows in Dean’s eyes that suggested he wasn’t totally happy about Sam’s choice, but Cas knew better than to interfere in the complicated, messy relationship that existed between the brothers. He refrained from comment. Instead he withdrew his hand from Dean's cheek, then took Dean’s hand in his and helped the hunter up. When he looked at Dean, he saw the green eyes studying him with an oddly intent expression.

“You weren’t kidding,” he said, his voice soft, almost reverent. “They’re huge.”

Cas had almost forgotten that his wings were exposed. Embarrassed by his unseemly display, he began to fold them behind him, but Dean reached up and grabbed his shoulder.

“No,” he whispered. “Don’t put them away.”

His eyes were hungry, _avid,_ as he stared, reminding the angel of the way he’d looked at strippers with wings in the past. But as Cas was not a large-breasted female in a skimpy costume, he was more than a little confused to find himself on the receiving end of such a gaze. He had thought he understood Dean’s sexual preferences, which had always seemed straightforward, honest, and bluntly heterosexual. 

But he was beginning to suspect that Dean was more complicated than he had previously realized.

This, he reflected, should not surprise him unduly. Most humans were more sexually flexible than they admitted to themselves. Sexuality was one of his Father’s great gifts to humanity, and Cas had observed enough humans over the millennia to know that this gift was celebrated in almost infinitely varied ways. 

It simply hadn’t occurred to him that _Dean_ might be… flexible.

Unable to resist the impulse, he spread his wings, stretching them fully, and Dean’s eyes dilated, growing dark. Cas swallowed, knowing that it was wrong to display his wings in front of a human, like a peacock displaying his plumage. It was more than just wrong—it was sinful. An angel's wings were a gift from God Himself, glowing with all the grace and beauty and love his Father had woven into the world when it was first wrought by His hands. Humans were occasionally permitted to see the faintest shadows of an angel's wings, but they were not worthy to see them fully.

And yet, the way Dean was staring at him…

At this moment, he didn’t care if it was sinful. He hadn’t realized how badly he wanted Dean to look at him the way Dean had stared at all those strippers in the past. He hadn't realized how desperately he wanted Dean to stare at him with naked hunger and need.

With _lust._

He flexed his wings, letting them ripple, and Dean’s mouth fell open. His expression made Cas strangely warm.

“We…” Dean’s voice sounded hoarse, and he cleared it. “We better get out of here, dude. Those demons might just come back.”

Privately, Cas thought the demons were unlikely to risk taking on an enraged seraph, but he refrained from comment. “Where are you staying?”

“The Moonlight Inn. It’s on Main Street. Room 207.”

Cas flapped his wings once, and in an eyeblink they were in a faded, tattered motel room, so small that his wings almost brushed the walls. He folded them against his back again, but Dean surprised him a second time by reaching out and wrapping his hand around the top of one of them.

“I meant it,” he said, his voice low, intense. “Don’t put them away.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Dean. This is a sin.”

Cas discovered that he and Dean were kneeling on the bed in the hotel room, very close to each other. Awkwardly, he unfolded his vessel, which seemed unusually clumsy and slow under the weight of the great wings, placed his feet on the floor, and managed to clamber to a standing position. His feathers brushed against several small objects, knocking a pen, a pad of paper, and a remote control to the floor. 

“Don’t be stupid, Cas.” Unencumbered and newly healed, Dean got to his feet more gracefully, but his dark, hooded gaze never left Cas’ wings. “I mean, it’s not, like, intimate or anything, right? I mean, c’mon, they’re just wings.”

 _Just wings._ Dean was human, of course, and had no understanding of what the display of wings meant amongst angels. But Cas felt his cheeks heat at the very idea of allowing Dean to continue staring. His vessel, he reflected, responded to his thoughts so easily these days. So _physically._ He was no longer a stranger to this form, and in fact it was no longer a true vessel, since its original occupant had vacated it. He had grown so used to this human body that he and it were virtually one, and he found that he was slightly concerned lest other human physical reactions occur.

No, he thought. This must not go any further. He needed to fold his wings away, to return to his merely human form. He needed to cease behaving so—

So _wantonly._

But Dean was staring, just as he had the first time he’d seen Cas in this vessel. Cas remembered that moment with vivid clarity. Dean had scoffed at the idea he was an angel of the Lord, and Cas had made lightning flash, and thunder roll, and raised his wings just enough that the shadows were visible. Dean had looked wide-eyed, terrified, and impressed all at once.

He looked like that now—like he was caught somewhere between worship and…

Well, arousal.

For the first time Cas identified the sensations running through his own vessel. The thunderous rush of blood through his veins, the quivering deep in the pit of his stomach, the rapid rise and fall of his chest as his lungs heaved for air. The unexpected stiffening of a portion of his anatomy he’d never had much use for.

This, he realized, was arousal.

And that was wrong, so wrong that the shock of it impelled him to begin folding his wings away. He began drawing them inward, but Dean reached out to him.

“Cas,” he said, his voice strained, almost hungry. “Don’t.”

At the touch of Dean’s hand on his arm, Cas’ feathers trembled. “Dean. You don’t understand.”

“They’re just… they’re _gorgeous,_ Cas. How come you haven’t shown them to me before?”

“I can’t. I shouldn’t. I… this is like…” Cas broke off awkwardly, then tried again. “Dean, you do recall the times we have gone to ‘strip joints’ together?”

Dean looked at him as if he had uttered a complete _non sequitur,_ but nodded anyway. “Sure. When you told me that one time there wasn’t any comparison between your wings and the ones that stripper wore, you sure as hell weren’t kidding.”

“Yes. But my point is that… what those women do… exposing themselves that way… stripping away their clothing, piece by piece… it is frowned upon by society, is it not?”

“It’s… well, it’s an underappreciated career path, I guess you could say.”

“And yet, if those same women took off their clothes in front of their mates, that would be perfectly acceptable, would it not?”

“It’d be more than acceptable. It’d be _awesome._ Cas, why are you—“ Dean broke off, and Cas could see him trying to put the pieces together. “Are you saying,” he said at last, “that showing someone your wings is, uh…”

“It is not something angels do lightly, Dean. We never, ever allow humans to see more than the shadow of our wings. And even among other angels, showing our wings is only done rarely. It is… well, a courtship display.”

“Oh.” Dean looked up at his wings, which were still half folded, and spoke softly. “But you let _me_ see them.”

“I was… protecting you.” Even as he spoke the words, Cas knew they were a half-truth. The demons had not needed to behold the full glory of his wings. The shadows of his wings, and the silver-white glow of his grace shining from his eyes, would have been sufficient to intimidate them into fleeing. He had dealt with enough demons to know that. And yet… when Dean had been in danger, he had instinctively spread his wings fully, protecting Dean to the utmost.

As if Dean were his mate.

Dean didn’t seem to notice his confusion. “So angels," he said, "can show their wings when they are protecting someone.”

“Usually only when it is someone…” Cas stumbled over the words. “Someone very important to them.”

“Oh. I see.”

Dean’s voice had dropped to its lowest register, so deep it rumbled. Cas swallowed and went on. “When I let a human see my wings, I am showing them a piece of my grace. A part of me, the _real_ me. In a sense, it is rather like…”

“Stripping,” Dean said softly.

“In a manner of speaking, I suppose. So you can understand why I need to put them away…”

His words trailed off as Dean’s hand moved from his shoulder to his wing. Dean’s fingers wrapped around the top part of his wing, more confidently than last time. His fingers felt warm and strong, and everything reasonable and logical and sensible in Cas’ mind faded into smoke and blew away. The music of the spheres faded from his consciousness, leaving only the rush of blood in his ears. His awareness of the vast reaches of the universe shrunk into nothingness, leaving nothing but the two of them in this cramped hotel room. 

He was only aware of one thing. Dean was touching his wing.

Dean was _touching his wing._

The embarrassment, the urge to hide his true self, to conceal his wings, fled in an instant. Beneath Dean’s gentle but firm touch, his wings flared outward instinctively, then rose up, brushing against the walls of the room as they did so, nearly touching the ceiling. Dean had to loose his grip on the wing, lest he be pulled off his feet entirely, but his callused palm trailed down across the front of the wing like a long, gentle caress. Cas shuddered.

“They’re warm,” Dean whispered. “I can feel the blood pulsing through them. And the feathers feel sort of, I dunno, _electric._ ”

The fluid that flowed through his natural form was golden ichor, not blood, but Cas didn’t bother to correct the hunter. He knew that the sensation that Dean felt as electricity was his grace, aching to be unbound from the confines of this tiny vessel, and he focused on keeping control of himself. This wing display, he realized, was more than merely unseemly—it could be dangerous. Dean could see and touch this much of him safely, but no more. And it was tempting, so tempting, to…

He pushed his desires aside. Dean was a human, not an angel. Dean was his friend, not his mate. And Dean could not see his entire true form without being damaged in the process.

Dean's fingers slipped gently between his feathers, exploring, and Cas closed his eyes, permitting Dean to touch him warmly, intimately, as no human ever should. This much, at least, he could allow himself. 

This much he _had_ to allow himself. This had gone beyond his control somehow, and he didn't have the strength or the willpower to stop Dean and fold his wings away. The sensation of Dean's hands stroking his feathers was too intense, too pleasurable, for him to resist.

He didn't resist. Instead, he sighed, stretching his wings to their utmost, and allowed Dean to strip his defenses away.


End file.
